By David Owen and Paul Nicholson
February 6 – Sepp Blatter has given what will be interpreted as a clear hint that he intends to run next year for another term as FIFA President, speaking out against the retention of age limits for International Olympic Committee (IOC) members.
Blatter, who turns 78 in March, told the 126th IOC Session in Sochi that imposing an age limit could be tantamount to an act of discrimination.
Speaking to RTS later he indicated that he would be prepared to continue as FIFA president: “If I have the health – and currently I am in good health – I don’t see why I would stop the work. A work which continues. FIFA needs consolidation. Many people say it needs to be continued,” he said.
“I will not shout ‘I’m candidate’ but if the member associations ask it to me, then I will not say no.”
Speaking in French at the IOC session, the FIFA President, who has been an IOC member since 1999, said:
“The age limit is a problem which we also considered during the reform at FIFA.
“We examined it for more than a year after having consulted all the football stakeholders, that is to say the clubs, the leagues, the federations, the confederations, and also by applying the Swiss civil code which governs us here as well at the International Olympic Committee.
“After all this work we concluded that imposing an age limit is an act of discrimination.
“If something has to be changed regarding the composition of a committee or an organisation, then this can be done by democratic means – and the most democratic method is simply to not re-elect a member, not for age but because one is no longer able to assume one’s responsibilities…
“It is not normal to impose an age limit on individuals.
“The only justified age limit that exists at the civil level is when a person comes of age, but in sports terms age limit as far as I understand it is discriminatory.”
Under current IOC rules, the mandatory retirement age for members elected before December 1999 is 80 – a milestone the Swiss national will attain in March 2016.
As things stand therefore, any rival in the FIFA Presidency race, should Blatter indeed run for a fifth term, would be able to point out that the incumbent would almost certainly be obliged to relinquish his active membership of world sport’s most powerful club well before the end of the 2015-19 FIFA Presidential term.
Changes to present IOC rules on the issue are expected as part of a wide-ranging process of scrutiny and reform set in train by Thomas Bach, the recently-elected IOC President.
However, until now, the expectation has been that this process would be more likely to result in an increase in the age-limit of 70 applying to IOC members elected after December 1999 than any change in the limit for more senior members.
The process, known as Olympic Agenda 2020, is scheduled to conclude at an extraordinary IOC Session in Monaco in December.
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